


The Power of Love

by beingxwest



Category: Quantico (TV)
Genre: Alex and Caleb get along, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Miranda makes an appearance, Shelby and Alex are best friends, Shelby and Caleb kind of work things out but not really, bad things happen bingo prompt: voice breaks, there's not so much working things out as fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-30 21:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19036012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beingxwest/pseuds/beingxwest
Summary: Fic inspired by episode 1x19. Takes place during episode. Shelby and Alex reunite, Shelby and Caleb maybe-sort-of-kind-of find their way back to each other, and Shelby confronts her feelings along the way. Shelby POV, Shaleb, Alex/ Shelby BROTP for the win. Written for bad things happen bingo prompt: voice breaking.





	The Power of Love

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy this! Let me know what you think! Also: I definitely watched the same five minutes of this episode thirty times for this fic. Not canon-compliant after Shelby and Alex work things out in the office.

Shelby's glad to have Alex back.

Of course Alex knows her ticks. Knows her well enough to know that she's tapping out Morse code, that she's putting up a front. Everything in the interrogation room feels like a scene - an elaborate dance meant to cover up what they're really doing. It's the very same operation that they were trained to carry out. The only difference is that they're dancing around the people that trained them themselves - Miranda's face slips into Shelby's mind, and she doesn't feel the sharp pain that had come earlier when she'd wondered if Miranda was the one behind all of this; maybe having Alex back is enough to soothe that shattered, aching part of herself that misses the matron that Miranda was before, the one that she'd wanted so desperately as a teenager - and Miranda doesn't see it.

They really do make a great team, her and Alex. They're brilliant. Shelby sees it the second that Alex puts the pieces together - not all of it, but just enough that she pauses and looks up at her, eyes wide and mouth forming a round O, just enough that her eyes change and she knows what they're doing, that they're _acting_ and not really trying to hurt each other - and Alex is so good at what she does that the broken and lost expression on her face is gone after half a second. It's gone so quickly that no one else would've seen it, but Shelby does, and the scrambling in Alex's eyes is gone with the expression. It's replaced with something angry and icy and not-quite-but-almost neutral, and Shelby fights the impulse to throw the camera a predatory smile.

Her and Alex are unstoppable when they're on the same side, and while they seem to be fighting each other, they're after something far bigger.

The energy in the room changes after that. It's electric, but it's a game, not an interrogation. It's a show they're putting on. They're practically playing dress-up, slipping into characters and making it look real enough to buy themselves a way out. To keep from blowing their covers.

What goes down in the interrogation room is rough, though - Shelby and Alex both say things that are sort of true but that they would never really mean, and even as Shelby knows it isn't real, knows that Alex knows it isn't real, there's still this little bit of fear blooming inside her: _what if I've gone too far to make this look real, what if she hates me for all that I'm saying, what if she doesn't believe me? -_ and Shelby's half swaying on her feet by the time that they collide in the staircase.

It's the sole blind spot in the entire building. This means that they can talk openly - there aren't any cameras for the person behind that stupid voice to see them through, and there isn't any way for Miranda to find out that their charade was exactly that: a charade. But it also means that Alex might really want to rip into Shelby for whatever she thinks she's guilty, and Shelby doesn't think she can handle that.

Her vision is already a little blurry as it is. She might look like she's got it all together, but on the inside, the stress is starting to get to her. It's been there, in the back of her mind, waiting to overtake her the minute that she stopped working - she's been working herself for days, just trying to keep her head above water, and now that she's run into the brick wall that might as well be this conversation with Alex (the unstoppable force that is herself and the immovable object that is this conversation with Alex) it's catching up to her.

The cacophony of her manicured fingers tapping on the arm of the chair, of Alex's scribbling away on her note pad, of the people walking outside and the clock on the wall behind her, combined with the pounding of her heart in her chest and in her ears, makes her nauseous. It's something of a miracle that she managed to stay upright on her way there. She's Shelby Wyatt - she always looks sharp, she's always in control, she's always on top of things, but somehow the world feels like it's been yanked out from underneath her.

Alex is right there, right in front of her, and that somehow helps - Alex is the most capable person she knows, even if she is more fire than Shelby's equally capable self is used to. She's always been ice, and she's so afraid that even their teaming up inside the interrogation room won't be enough to close the divide between them.

Everything's been different since Quantico. And Shelby's terrified that they can't fix it. That's why she's been away all this time, why she's kept her distance, no matter how much she wanted to reach out for her best friend. No matter how much she needed her.

Sure, she wanted to protect her from the voice, because she hadn't quite realized what was going on with it. But there's still part of her that doesn't want to face what's come between them. She doesn't know if they can find a way to fix it, she doesn't know if Alex will forgive her, and she doesn't want to face the possibility that they're going to keep hating each other for the rest of their lives.

Just because Shelby's found a way to forgive her doesn't mean that Alex will do the same. Just because Shelby wants to find a way to work things out doesn't mean that Alex will, too. Just because Shelby wants Alex in her life doesn't mean that Alex is going to feel the same way.

The thought sends another wave of dizziness through her. Her stomach drops, and her knees nearly give out. _No_ , something in the back of her mind screams, _no_.

Shelby puts all the weight she can onto the railing beside her, clenches her hand around the top rail until she feels steadier. Spilling her guts to Alex makes it a little easier. It's an easy back and forth that she knows, and the rhythm isn't a hard one to fall back into. Her hands wave around a little more than she would like as she speaks, but that's forgivable. The floor below her feels a little more solid as Alex takes in what she's told her.

Shelby holds her breath as Alex processes everything. It takes a fraction of a second, and then Alex is nodding.

The frantic beating of Shelby's heart slows into something more manageable. She blows out a long breath, and then, feeling her usually I-have-my-shit-together energy come back to her, shoving away the anxiety that had tightened every muscle in her body like it'd been flowing through her bloodstream, she tilts up the corners of her mouth.

She tells her about Caleb, and laughs as Alex processes that one, too. There's a lot of weight there, because she misses him so much, but she can't think about it. She doesn't have that kind of time. Even hearing his voice these few times they've talked has been enough to practically knock her on her ass.

There's a reason that they (whoever's behind this) threatened to kill him when they called her - the thought of him hurts, the thought of him hurting is unbearable, and of course they could use him against her.

So she can't think about him right now. It's just not going to work. She doesn't have the luxury of time right now - they have to stop this asshole, because it's only going to get worse if they don't. Things are already so... out of control. It's only going to worse if they don't do something about it.

She can think about Caleb when they have this shit figured out.

Alex is watching her, eyes a little wider than they should be, but not angry - scared. It's Alex's turn to hear if she's been forgiven.

"Now can we go catch this son of a bitch, or do you need to wave your gun around some more?"

Alex nods again. Her face scrunches up just a little, exposing deep and purple circles under her eyes, and part of Shelby feels guilty for making her deal with this on her own, but then Alex is saying, "I really missed you," and stepping towards her.

They wrap their arms around each other, hugging so tightly that they're rocking side to side a little. Shelby feels one, two, three tears slip down her cheek, and Alex takes a breath that sounds more like a sob.

She hates crying. Hates letting herself be this vulnerable. But this is Alex, and they were like sisters before, and why can't they have that again?

They can. All of this is bullshit, and it's so awful, she hates it - she hates it so much that it almost feels like it's bubbling up inside her, like it's slowly burning her up from the inside out. She exhales slowly. Once all of this is over, they'll have time to really talk things through, but there's never been something better at bringing people together than a common enemy.

They'll be okay. She's sure of it. She'll make sure of it, if nothing else. They've been a team since Quantico. They can be a team again.

They're practically sisters. Of course they can.

"If anyone can find a way through this," Alex whispers in Shelby's ear after a minute or so, somehow echoing her own thoughts, "it's definitely us, blondie."

Shelby giggles. The nickname is so familiar that it warms something up inside her. She pulls away from Alex and grins at her wildly. "That asshole should be shaking in their boots."

Alex chuckles, nodding. "They certainly should be." She waves her hand through the air, as if she's envisioning something being put on a billboard, and widens her eyes comically. "Wyatt and Parrish are coming for them."

They stand there for a few more seconds, happy to not be dealing with it by themselves and happy to have recovered their friendship. But they know that they have work to do, and they get back to it pretty quickly.

"We need to get out of here," Alex says.

Shelby nods in response. "Yeah, but..." She looks around. "We can't..."

Alex nods. She knows exactly what Shelby is talking about. "You go out the front door."

Shelby has to head back downstairs anyway. She needs to let her assistant know that she's leaving, and to make an excuse that will make her sudden disappearance much less suspicious, so Alex will head out the back when they're done.

"We can meet there, so that no one will see us together," Alex explains without looking up from her phone. She's typing furiously, fingers flying over the keys, and Shelby can feel the energy, too - they have to get a move on, they have to get to work, they have to put an end to this.

While it would be faster to just leave out the front together, after the show that they just put on in the interrogation room, it would raise way too many eyebrows. It'll take longer this way, but it should keep whoever's behind the voice off their trail for a little while longer.

In the back of her mind, Shelby knows that this means that it will take longer for her to see Caleb - he was with Alex this morning, so wherever she's going, he's got to be there. From the way that he sounded earlier, Shelby knows that something isn't right.

She desperately wants to see him, wants to figure out what's going on with him, what's wrong with him. But every time that she even thinks about seeing him for herself - about knowing more than she can get out of those too short phone calls - she remembers that they threatened him to get her to do what they wanted, that they used him against her, and something in her brain screams, _Liability, much?_

"So we'll meet there, and then we can..." Shelby shakes her head, waves one of her hands dismissively. Caleb will be there, _Caleb_ will be _there_ , _Caleb will be there_ , and all Shelby wants to do is -

Well, she'd really like to read him the riot act, but then she kind of would like to make-out. For a while.

Somehow, Shelby has a feeling that Alex would be totally supportive of this, if there weren't an insane person-behind-a-voice to find. Maybe she can have her make-out session after all of this.

(There is also a very serious conversation that needs to be had, something to the tune of, _I'm really sorry I slept with, well, your father, who's now dead, and I'm sorry about that, too, and um, I'm still sort of really in love with you, which is a little awkward, I'm sure, but I'm really sorry and I really missed you, and can we please make-out?_ , and while Shelby's already feeling a little woozy at the thought of that discussion, she knows that they can't figure out where they're at until they've done it. And even _that's_ operating under the assumption that he still cares for her at all - after everything that she's done, there's a really decent chance that he wants nothing to do with her. And that would be perfectly reasonable considering everything that's happened.)

"Hey." All of the sudden, Alex is waving a hand in front of Shelby's face. Her phone is still in her other hand, but now that arm is crossed over her chest. She must be done sending Shelby the address to the café for their rendezvous. "You still in there, Blondie?"

"What?" Shelby starts, jumping a little, before she realizes that she must've zoned out, busy thinking about _her_ and _Caleb_ and _her-and-Caleb_ , and seeing him again for the first time in so long. (In her defense, he sort of really, really hated her guts the last time that she saw him, and so she has a good reason to be nervous. Even if he didn't really sound like he hated her over the phone.)

"Oh, yeah, sorry," Shelby stumbles over an apology, and then gives up on that, instead choosing to ask what she wants to know as directly as she dares. "Caleb's with you, isn't he?"

Alex reads between the lines. She knows that Shelby knows that Caleb is with her - how else would Caleb have tried to keep her from going into the office today? - and that what Shelby is asking is really a little bit more pointed.

Alex pauses for a few seconds before answering. There's something in her eyes that Shelby doesn't like, and the set of her mouth is one that Shelby's seen before - when she told O'Conner about Drew, about Drew's condition. _Drew was sick_ , Shelby remembers, and suddenly her stomach drops - _what could be wrong with Caleb?_

"He is." Alex's face falls, and she looks a little paler than a minute or two before. "He's not..." She shakes her head, her gaze falling to the floor. She digs the toe of her boot into the ground as she explains, "He's not doing so good, Shelbs."

Shelby rolls her lips inward as she processes that. She'd known that before, or, if she hadn't known, she'd expected it. She doesn't meet Alex's eyes as she speaks. "I kind of thought that... um, I..." She shrugs. "I knew. Or, I expected it, I guess."

There's another beat of silence, and then Alex shakes away the glumness of their conversation. She trades it out for the all-business, we-have-work-to-do attitude that Shelby is used to. Somehow, it's comforting. "We need to get out of here."

"I know," Shelby breathes. She puts her hand back on the top bar of the railing. It doesn't steady her as much as she'd been hoping it might. She gives Alex the best wicked, let's-catch-this-asshole smile she can manage, but it probably comes out more like a grimace than anything else. Before Alex can say anything about it, she shakes her head and says, "Let's get to it, then."

Alex mutters her agreement, and after throwing Shelby one last up-and-down look, she pivots on the ball of her foot, peeling off towards the back exit.

Shelby rolls her eyes before turning and heading in the opposite direction.

-/-

By the time she clears the front door, she's dealt with Miranda's borderline profuse apologies for Alex's behavior (and managed not to laugh at that, too), promised her assistant that she'll call when she gets home to schedule the rest of the appointments necessary to complete their contract, and cleared security.

She's completely exhausted.

It feels like the weight of everything she's had to deal with in the past few days is just building up on her. Like it's added weight, shoving down on her shoulders and making it difficult to walk in a straight line. It's harder than she'd like for it to be, even just to raise her arm - the one that isn't carrying her purse, which she's doing her best not to hold in front of her like a shield - to wave at the last security guard covering the front door on her way out.

He's worked there since she graduated Quantico, and he knows her - maybe from the news, maybe from the day she spent in this office after she graduated, but it doesn't matter. She was raised in the south, as a debutante, and she couldn't bring herself to ignore the kind smile on his face, even if the politesse of the south wasn't ingrained in her.

She knows his face. Even from about fifteen away, he's really familiar. She knows that he's been around a while, but his name escapes her. Things have been a little crazy lately, after all. He waves at her when she's a few yards away, and her brain - ever-ready to go with the familiar dealing-with-people skills she learned growing up and running such a large business - scrambles to put a name to his face once again. Luckily, she's close enough now to see that his nametag, right over his heart, reads, _Michael Russell._

Once she's close enough to avoid yelling across the lobby, she greets him - making good use of the southern charm that she's so well known for - and gives him her best smile. "Howdy." She waves at him with her free hand. "How're you doin', Russell?"

His grin gets even wider, somehow, and his eyes twinkle. He's old enough to be a father, though the kid couldn't be very old, and there's a ring on his finger that tells Shelby everything she needs to know (she doesn't remember it being there when she still worked for the Bureau, but hey, good for him) - he's a happy guy, the kind that probably carries a picture of his spouse and child (if there is one) in his wallet, the kind that would probably give the shirt off of his back to help somebody else out. A good man, in other words. In all of this insanity, Shelby knows that she's probably lost sight of the goodness in people just a little bit.

It's nice to know that there's still some of that running around.

( _It's not him_ , she knows that for sure - there might be a voice in the back of her head, screeching about how it might be him, about how the asshole that's behind all of this could be the man standing in front of her, but she knows that isn't true. There's too much that doesn't add up, but she can't let herself believe that this nice guy has the capability to do some of the things that have been done. That's just too much. Her faith in humanity - not to mention her faith in her ability to read people - is not something she's willing to give up. Not something she's willing to let the asshole responsible for all of this take from her, too.)

Once she's a couple of feet away, Russell leans forward and opens the front door. He stands against it to hold it open for her. "I'm doing just fine, Ms. Wyatt."

"That's good to hear." She keeps her words slow, letting her drawl slip into her voice. Alex would sometimes tease her for it a little bit back in their Quantico days, mostly for the way that she'd use it to charm the pants off of people, but Caleb sometimes just stared at her with this weird smile on his face. She couldn't quite figure out what it meant, but maybe she'll have a chance to ask him why now.

She shakes that thought off. She still can't afford to think about Caleb, even though she's so close to seeing him that she can almost smell the cologne he used to wear. She has to get out of here first. Get to the rendezvous with Alex. They'll get a cab from there or something. Shelby can think about Caleb then. Or once she's right in front of him.

That'll work too, won't it? It might even keep her from passing out at the thought. (She can imagine Alex hearing about that one. Alex would never let her hear the end of it: _You passed out because of Golden Boy? Good grief, Shelbs, here I thought you were above that._ So no, passing out really isn't an option, and that means that Shelby needs to keep her shit together.)

Shelby pauses just before stepping into the doorway, so that there's a bit of polite personal space between her and the security guard. "I should be back sometime soon for some business stuff." She brushes her hair out of her eyes with her fingers, careful not to poke herself with her manicured fingernails, and gives him another smile. This one is almost coy. "When I come back, you and me are gettin' us some coffee."

He raises his eyebrows in response, chuckling. "Might I ask why?"

Shelby points to the ring on his finger. She bats her eyelashes enough to make it clear that she's making a point. "I wanna hear all about _that_." She's careful to put a higher pitch in her voice.

"Sawyer and I got married a few months ago. We've been together for almost four years now."

"Are the two of you happy?"

Russell's eyes get even brighter talking about Sawyer, and Shelby's chest aches at how happy he looks. Sure, she's thrilled for him - he deserves to be happy like that; he's so nice to everyone, he's always opening the door for people and laughing and making jokes to lighten the mood, and Shelby is so happy for him that she could burst with it - but it reminds her so much of what she must've looked like in the honeymoon phase of her and Caleb's relationship, when they could've lasted forever no matter how much they said that they weren't exclusive or even in a relationship.

"We're happier than I ever thought that we'd be," he tells Shelby.

The raw honesty on his face, in his voice, is enough to send something through Shelby. She wants that kind of love, wants it so badly that she doesn't know what to do with herself. Most importantly, though, she wants it with Caleb.

She really, really wants Caleb in her life. She's wanted that ever since Quantico, and even if she wasn't willing to sacrifice her career to make things work between them, that doesn't mean that watching him leave with his father that day - after everything went down with Will and the disaster that got Caleb removed from Quantico and out of her life for good (or so she'd thought at the time, apparently) - didn't feel like her heart was being ripped out of her chest.

Running into Caleb at the field office... It feels like it was months ago, even though it really wasn't all that long ago. Thinking about it, though, still feels like a punch (or several) to the stomach.

_God_ , _I miss him_.

Shelby gives him the sweetest smile she can muster, given her current train of thought, and puts a hand on his arm. "And I'm happy for you."

Russell promises that he's going to hold her to that coffee - and that she's paying - and then she's slipping past him through the door. She waves over her shoulder, trying to ignore the sun in her eyes and the breeze that seems far chillier than it should be this time of year. (Granted, that might just be the Georgia-girl in her - it's never this cold so early in the year back home.)

She only pauses to set up the Google Maps directions to the café on her phone, and then she's marching away from the building that holds so many memories, so much heartache (not all of it her own), and praying to God that her driver doesn't notice her leaving the parking lot alone and on foot.

By the time that she finds the café, she feels like she hasn't slept in days. (That might be because she really hasn't, but, well, whatever.) She might also need something to drink, and to get some food in her system, because she suddenly can't remember the last time she bothered with that either.

Shelby ignores these things, though, instead choosing to head inside the café. It's a quaint bistro, the kind that she prefers, and _of course_ Alex would pick this place - it's not much, but it's the kind of thing that says, _I know you, I know you this well, and look at that, we can be best friends again_ , and Shelby doesn't think she's ever been so grateful for something like this in her life. There's enough of a crowd that she doesn't stand out, and so many of them seem to work in the business section of the city that she doesn't seem any different. No one seems to recognize her, though, and that might make the list of the best five things that have happened all day.

She doesn't look around for Alex. If the person behind the voice is somehow watching, they can't know that they're working together, and that means that it can't look like she knew where to find Alex. Shelby makes a beeline (which she hopes doesn't look as hurried as she wants to be - she needs to look relaxed, perfectly on top of things, in order to keep up appearances) for the counter.

She orders her coffee, moves over to wait for it by the wall, and discovers Alex suddenly standing right next to her. "Fancy meeting you here," Alex breathes.

Shelby only huffs a laugh. Not being all alone in this - she'd felt so alone just a few hours before; knowing that it isn't just her in this is so, _so_ nice, and even though Caleb was sort of helping her, she knew that something wasn't right between them or with him or both, so Alex's presence somehow makes the world a little more take-on-able - is better than she could've imagined.

Shelby gets her coffee, calls her driver to let them know to take the rest of the day off (and make an excuse for how she'll be getting around, claiming that she has a dinner date - this makes Alex laugh and whisper, "So you and Caleb have a date scheduled, too, huh?" - that someone will be picking her up for), and then her and Alex pretend to make polite (if slightly strained, to line up with their performance in the interrogation room) conversation as they leave. They walk in circles for a little while, cutting a path through downtown (out of the business district and into the historical side of town, and then swinging back through this block of vintage and antique stores before heading up towards a side road) that they hope fools the person behind the voice, if they're watching.

They're probably not, but they can't blame themselves for being a little paranoid. Not after everything else that's happened.

Eventually, the two of them decide to get a cab, and while Shelby's aching feet are grateful for it (she would not have worn heels if she'd known that this was where the day would lead), it only gives her mind an opportunity to run in circles.

"Are you okay?" Alex asks under her breath as the driver hangs a sharp left turn, heading for wherever Alex and Caleb are staying. "You look really pale, Blondie."

Shelby, sick of pretending and needing to get it out of her head, maybe, shakes her head. "It's just... been a really long time since we saw each other."

Alex nods, understanding immediately. "Did you two ever talk about...," she pauses for a split second, unsure of how to refer to their long and painful romantic history, and then she must make up her mind to go for it directly, because she continues, "the two of you? While you were working together?"

"No," Shelby says on an exhale. She's messing with the edge of her purse, pulling on a loose string that she hadn't noticed before, and she hates how much of a nervous wreck that she's turned into at even the thought of seeing Caleb. "We just talked about you. And what to do about everything else."

"I'm assuming these weren't long conversations," Alex jokes grimly.

"Sometimes they were." Shelby keeps her reply vague, but then decides something like _to hell with that,_ and spills her guts. "It hurt. A lot. To talk to him like that without really... talking _to_ him? Does that make any sense? It was like we were talking _around_ each other, ignoring... everything that we used to be, and it was so _awful_."

Alex slings an arm around her shoulder. "He's different now." It comes out more as a warning than anything else.

"I know. He sounded so hurt, so lost, on the phone sometimes, and I asked him if he was okay once, and he actually just..."

"He what?" Alex prompts. It isn't demanding, just an effort to get her to talk about it. Alex isn't wrong - Shelby really does need to get all of it out of her system before facing Caleb. "What did he do?"

Shelby looks at Alex for several long seconds, and then in a voice that sounds way too much like a shriek, quiet as she's trying to be, explains, "He _hung up_ on me, Al!"

Alex blinks hard a couple of times. It's like she doesn't quite grasp what she means for a minute, and then she does, and she's laughing so hard that Shelby's pretty sure there's tears in her eyes.

"It's not funny, Alex."

"Oh - it's so - funny, Shelbs," Alex gasps out as she guffaws. She's not even trying to be quiet about it, and the cab driver is glaring at her in the rearview mirror as he turns right and into a residential area. Alex totally notices, but she doesn't seem to care. She's waving at her face with her free hand, still laughing hard, when she exclaims, "You two are _perfect_ for each other!"

"I didn't just hang up on you when you asked me if I was okay!"

Alex sits up in her seat, trying to catch her breath. The grin on her face can only be described as shit-eating. "No, but you _totally_ thought about it."

Shelby knows that she's right. She doesn't have a reply, so she leans into Alex and doesn't say anything.

They pull up outside the apartment building a few minutes later, Alex's stupid grin still on her face and laughter still twinkling in her eyes. Even though it's at Shelby's expense, Shelby has to admit that she's missed her best friend laughing. Even if it's at her.

Shelby climbs out of the cab first. Still in the car, Alex gives her a wicked smile as she hands over some cash to the cab driver, who looks thrilled to be rid of them.

Once they get out of the cab, Alex slings an arm back over Shelby's shoulders and drags her towards the front door of the building. She's moving so quickly that Shelby nearly loses her footing once or twice.

"C'mon, Shelbs, let's get you to your prince charming."

Shelby doesn't even bother arguing with her. It wouldn't really be much use anyway.

-/-

The hallways in Alex's building are weirdly green, and Shelby usually hates it for it's mint-ness, but the familiarity is nice. Today. She'll go back to hating the paint job tomorrow.

In a typical calm-before-the-storm fashion, her vision evened out and her heart stopped pounding on the elevator. Caleb is so close she's got this weird idea that she can feel him, and the only thing stopping her from running down the corridor and then straight through Alex's front door is Alex herself. Alex keeps her arm around Shelby's shoulders until they come to a stop in front of her door.

The thirty seconds it takes Alex to dig her keys out of her purse and unlock the door give Shelby ten seconds to wonder what they're going to find on the other side of the door. Will Caleb be up and about? Will he be in another room? Will he be watching a movie or doing something else? Alex mentioned that he wasn't in such good shape, and he didn't sound so good this morning, so probably not. But will he even hear them come in? Will he hear them and think it's someone working for the voice?

Will he even still be there?

The thought hadn't occurred to her before, but from the way Alex was talking earlier, maybe there's a chance that he's a flight risk. Alex really has no way of knowing if he's still in there, does she? What if he's gone?

Another second goes by, and then Alex is pushing the door open and stepping inside her apartment.

"Caleb," Alex calls into her living room. There's a sound, maybe an incoherent word, maybe just the sound of Caleb moving against the couch, the rustle of the pillow or blanket he's got. "Wake up."

Alex's comfortable stride is about as casual as Shelby has ever seen her, a far contrast from the two things (a healthy dose of fear at what might happen next and the urge to throw her arms around Caleb) warring inside Shelby as she follows Alex inside. Shelby spins on her heel and shoves the door closed as soon as she sees Caleb - curled up on his side on the couch, just a few feet in front of her, close enough to touch if she wanted to - because it appears that just seeing him is far too much for her to handle at the moment.

"No."

It's a mumble, half into the pillow he's laying on, but it's Caleb's voice nonetheless. He looks more exhausted than Shelby thinks she's ever seen him, even though he's not actually facing her, and her jaw drops at the sight.

Alex tosses her bag down on a nearby table just as Shelby shoves away from the door, taking another step towards a chair on the other side of the room. As she gets a more full view of Caleb, still half-asleep on the couch, her bag slips right off of her arm and into the chair, like all of the muscle went out of her arm at the sight.

She hates seeing him like this, she decides. Caleb doesn't deserve to feel like this, to obviously be in so much pain, and she clenches her hands into fists. She doesn't know what it could be that's gotten him to this point - something is wrong with him physically, yes, but there's also something _wrong_ with him, and maybe Shelby's losing her mind, but she could always tell when something was wrong with Caleb (back at Quantico, which feels like lifetimes ago, at least), and she'll be damned if she can't do the same thing now, when there's so clearly something not right. There's this split-second where she feels like she could rip everyone who's ever hurt him to pieces with her bare hands. It's gone as quickly as it came, but the flash of anger leaves her steadier, feeling more prepared for what she's going to do next.

She steps forward, feeling years younger and exhausted in her bones at the same time. "Not even for me?" she asks. She's wringing her hands together in a way she hasn't done in years - it's a nervous tick very reminiscent of the time just after her parents died ( _faked their deaths?_ Shelby still doesn't know what to say they did) - and she suddenly feels like she's only two months into Quantico and falling head over heels for the boy that drives her up the walls.

There's a weird pause, and then Caleb is sitting up so fast that Shelby doesn't register the movement until they've locked eyes.

His eyes are bloodshot, and the blanket that was up around his hips has fallen a little with his movement, revealing pajama pants that look about as rumpled as the shirt he's wearing. There are other blankets on the couch, some of them thrown up over the back of the couch. His skin is shiny in the dim light, like he's been sweating a fever out. She would never say that he looks like a child, because that description just wouldn't fit, but he looks lost and confused. There's something scared in his eyes that she's never seen before, and she hates it.

Hates it so much that her heart feels like it's breaking.

She lifts one of her hands to her chest and makes a pitiful attempt at waving at him. When she speaks, her voice is quieter than she means for it to be, and her tone is almost strangled. "Hey."

Caleb blinks at her owlishly, and then, before she can stop herself, she's closing the distance between them and falling to her knees in front of him. Her arms slip around him, pull him as close to her as she dares, and one of his arms is sliding across her back. His other arm is holding them both upright as they slowly rock back and forth.

A few seconds later, his other arm is around her, and she pulls him towards her enough to support all of their weight. He takes a heaving breath. She buries her face into his neck a little bit more, not bothering to hide the tears that work their way out of her eyes.

"Shelby," he breathes into her hair. "Shelby, you're _here_."

She only manages to nod into his shoulder.

There's some quiet foot steps behind them, and then the near-silent whine of a door closing, and Shelby realizes that Alex has left them alone. They have next to no time, they have to get shit done, they have to find a way to find this asshole, and still, Alex has chosen to give them a few minutes to themselves.

-/-

Shelby and Caleb sit there for an entire - well, she doesn't really know how long - before Caleb yawns into Shelby's shoulder.

From the look of things, he was asleep for quite a bit before Shelby and Alex got back, and the fact that he's still so tired tugs on something in her chest.

"Are you okay, Caleb?" she whispers.

Her voice is barely audible, but he hears her just fine.

He shakes his head. "I'm - um, well, I'm - recovering," he stammers.

There's a note of uncertainty in his voice that she's never heard before, and it unsettles something inside her. She's seen him scared, afraid, and unsure of himself before, but she's never seen him quite like this, and she doesn't know what to do with that. Doesn't know how to deal with it. Doesn't know how to help, even though she doesn't really even decide that she wants to. It's a given, just like everything else about Caleb.

Shelby rubs slow circles into his arm, just the tips of her fingers brushing over his skin. She's trying to let him talk it out, but this doesn't seem to help.

"From an - I've been - " His voice breaks, and she can practically hear the sob building up inside him, and she hates it. Still, this is her Caleb, the one who never gives up and is always trying to please the people around him, and he continues, “Shelby, I’m so, so – ”

His voice breaks again, and the sob comes out as a cough.

Shelby squeezes her eyes closed, pulls herself together enough to gently interrupt him. "Caleb," she murmurs, waiting until he's nodded that he hears her before continuing, "why don't we talk about... um, well, everything, after you've rested some more, hm? You're tired, so we can just relax, yeah?"

Caleb blows out a breath, stirring the hair on the side of Shelby's face. "Uh - oh - okay."

She stands up, pulling away from him as much as she dares - she doesn't want him to fall over, and from the way that he's been leaning on her, that is a distinct possibility - as she does. "Let's get you comfortable."

It takes a bit of maneuvering, but eventually, Caleb is lying on his back on the couch, and Shelby is kneeling next to him. He's propped up on the exact kind of mountain of pillows that she would've expected. She tucks the blanket up around him, and then grabs another one off of the back of the couch when she notices that he's shivering, wrapping that one around him, too.

Once Shelby is satisfied that he won't freeze to death, she kneels next to him again, grabbing one of his hands with one of her own. He's shivering so hard already that his teeth are chattering. She keeps their joined hands underneath his blankets and tries not to think about it.

It doesn't work. Before she can convince herself not to, she twists to rest the back of her hand on his forehead. He's warmer than he should be, she thinks, but it's not any worse than it would be if he had a cold or something.  _That's a good sign,_ she tells herself.  _It could be a lot worse, you know._

"Am I r-running fever?" Caleb's voice is weak from exhaustion, still, and his words don't quite come out right because he's shivering so hard. "I was ear-earlier."

She shakes her head, more for herself than for him. His eyes are closed. "Yes," she replies after a few seconds of careful consideration. "But that's okay. It's not too bad, and I'll be right here to keep an eye on you anyway. You'll be just fine."

A few seconds go by. Shelby holds her breath as Caleb contemplates what she's said, tracing imaginary shapes across the back of his hand and up his forearm. He relaxes at the touch. A wave of relief washes over her when he finally nods. "Okay." 

Shelby cards her fingers through his hair once before returning that hand to rest on the edge of the couch. He sighs, eyelids fluttering closed, and Shelby can't help the small smile that slips onto her face. 

"I'll be right here with you," she assures him. She isn't sure why she feels the need to all of the sudden -- it isn't really like her, but he looks so exhausted and hurt that she can't help but try to do something about it; if that'll help, then that's what she'll do -- but she wants him to know so badly that her words tumble over one another as she rushes to get them out. "As long as you'll have me."

The fear from earlier -- that he won't want to see her, that he'll want nothing to do with her, that he'll be cold or mean or break her heart for good -- creeps through her in a freezing blast, but it's gone as quickly as it came, because Caleb is blinking one eye open to look at her. 

"You're staring," she murmurs a few beats later, when he's still looking at her with one wide-eye. "Is there something on my face?"

He says nothing, just shakes his head a little bit, and then wipes lazily at his nose with the back of his free hand. When he does finally say something, it's to thank her. His voice is barely a whisper. It sounds scratchy. Shelby can't believe that she missed it before, but it sounds like he hasn't had water in days.

She wants to tell him that he doesn't need to thank her. That she's here because she loves him, and there's really nothing that she wouldn't for him. Instead, she stares at him for a long minute, until his eyes close again.

It dawns on her as he sniffles a few minutes later. _Maybe he really does have a cold?_ He hasn't sounded good on the phone for the last few days, she knows that, but somehow she can't put her finger on what's the matter with him. He's running fever, and he seems sick, but something about that just isn't right to her. 

Either way, he could be dehydrated. That wouldn't be good. Shelby needs to do something about that. "I'm going to get you some water, alright?"

Caleb's eyes fly open. His eyes are glassy, and there's panic in them, and he's squeezing her hand like he's holding on to her for dear life. He begins to sit up. "No, no, _no_ \- you don't have to do that, I'm _fine_ \- "

Shelby puts her free hand on his shoulder. She doesn't want to shove him back down, but he doesn't look like he needs to move more than two inches. Hell, he doesn't really look like he could manage it on his own.

She's not entirely sure where the sudden panic has come from, but she's careful all the same to keep her voice low and gentle as she says, "Hey, hey, hey, Caleb, you need water. You already look dehydrated enough as it is." At the slightly confused look he gives her, she tilts her head to the side as something dawns on her. "When was the last time you had anything to drink?"

"I don't..." He shakes his head. He doesn't meet her eyes. He sounds more lost than she's ever heard him, and her heart all but breaks in half. "I'm not sure."

She gives him as pointed a look as she dares with the way he looks. "Why don't you let me go get you a glass of water?"

He looks at her for a moment, studying her. "You said -- you said that you'd stay with me, Shelbs," he whispers. His voice is thick, like he's choked up, and sure enough, his eyes are red and shining with tears. 

Shelby's mouth drops open to form a round 'O'. She pulls him into her arms before she can think any better of it, holding him tightly to her once again. "I'm not, I'm not going to leave you, Caleb." 

Caleb nods into her neck. "Please don't."

"I won't."

After a few minutes, Caleb's shivering has lessened. Shelby tightens her arms around him. 

The next time Caleb speaks, his words are rushed, too, and he sounds like he's holding back a sob. "I love you, Shelby, and I don't know what I would -- " 

Shelby pulls back just enough to look him in the eyes. Something rips through her at the sight of how filled with tears his eyes are. "I'm not going anywhere." She presses a careful kiss to his forehead. "I'm going to stay right here with you."

"You promise?"

Shelby only laughs a little, offering him a coy smile. She pulls him back to her, so that he's resting against her once again, and smiles, "Wild horses couldn't drag me away."

Eventually, Caleb convinces Shelby to slip off her heels and jacket and scarf and lay down with him. She does, crawling under the blankets she'd wrapped him in when he'd first lied down. It's a couch that is clearly not meant for two people to lay next to each other, but they make themselves comfortable anyway. This ultimately means that Caleb rests his head on Shelby's shoulder, and they wrap their arms around each other, and she runs her hands up and down his back until he dozes off. 

Shelby drifts off a while after Caleb does, warm and comfortable and at ease holding him and being held. Alex can have her couch back later. 

-/-

When Shelby wakes up, Caleb is still asleep. He's mostly sprawled on top of her by this point. Their arms are still tight around each other. 

The apartment is dead silent aside from their breathing. Even groggy and half-asleep, a voice in the back of Shelby's head demands, _Where's Alex?_

A few more seconds of carefully looking around and listening don't help her at all, so Shelby files that one away for a few minutes later. There really doesn't seem to be anyone else in the apartment. In the dim light, it's hard to tell if she's been left a note of any kind. 

It's dark on the other side of Alex's living room window. The only light in the entire room is what's seeping in from the kitchen and what's filtering through the windows from the busy city around them. It is still bright enough, though, for Shelby to see that a pair of water bottles, a box of Cheez-itz, and Shelby's purse have been lined up on the coffee table beside Caleb's laptop. 

_Courtesy of Alex, of course_ , Shelby knows. 

She pulls her purse from the coffee table with one hand, maneuvers it until it's on the floor next to the couch. She can dig through it with one hand without looking -- she needs her phone, and that won't be hard to find in her purse -- but she doesn't want to risk waking Caleb up by moving around too much. 

It takes a bit longer than she would consider preferable, but she eventually grabs her phone and pulls it out of her purse. There's one text message, so she puts in her passcode and swipes down her notifications to see what it says. 

_Don't do anything I wouldn't do, Shelbs_ , it reads beneath Alex's contact information and photograph. A second message below that one says, _You two do look really happy together, you know._

Attached to that message, of course, is a picture that must've been taken with the flash on. It features Caleb and Shelby, buried under blankets and tangled up in each other, recognizable only because of their hair, which is probably a complete mess, though part of Shelby's face is visible. 

It's clear in the picture that she's fast asleep, but even so, there's a tiny smile on her face. 

 


End file.
